#sth 138

Return to Angel Island (Part 1): The Message

Writer: Karl Bollers Pencils: Jon Gray Colors: Jason Jensen

We're in for a big one, guys! This is another four-parter, and it's time to finally find out what's going on on Angel Island! But first, Sally and Sonic have to deal with the blowback from the king about their little Tommy mission. King Max chews them out for a while, with Sally tersely accepting the scolding, but Sonic actually attempts to cover for Sally by lying (badly) that she only came along because he kidnapped her. Of course, the king doesn't believe him, and after coldly calling into question Sally's ability to rule in his stead when they leave on their tour, he sends them off.

Yikes. Seems things are going to stay frosty between these two for a while. That afternoon, the king and queen, along with Uncle Chuck as their advisor and Antoine as their bodyguard, depart for their world tour. Shortly thereafter, everyone is hanging out in Chuck's diner, which is currently being manned by Jules and Bernie, while Sonic confides in Knuckles and Julie-Su about his troubles with Sally. Julie-Su points out that Sally's feelings are understandable to a degree, as she herself struggled for a long time after Knuckles' return from the grave with feeling comfortable about him going back into battle. The conversation is interrupted by a sudden crash at the door, and everyone is shocked to see a badly injured Charmy and Saffron enter the establishment and immediately collapse. They're immediately taken to receive medical attention, and after that Sally questions the two on what exactly happened. Charmy and Saffron relate, stricken by grief, how Eggman attacked their home at the Goldenhive Colony, and try as they might, they failed to save anyone - and they mean literally anyone. Their parents, all their friends, every single other member of the colony is dead now. I have to say, while this is certainly an… effective way of kicking to the curb Kenders' weird plans to shunt Charmy away from the spotlight, it's also an incredibly brutal way. I mean, how many others here have lost literally everyone they care about? Oh, wait, Knuckles is getting there! Fittingly, at that exact moment a transmission comes through on the Technolo-Tree, but the only thing that can be made out through the static is that Locke is apparently being held prisoner on Angel Island. And at that moment, Knuckles' patience, so carefully maintained just a couple issues ago, finally snaps.

Sally, you have to remember that it's been almost an entire year that he's been off his island, and he knows he still has friends and family stuck there, with Eggman doing who knows what to them. Can you blame him for wanting to rescue literally the only home he's ever known from Eggman's brutal occupation? Sonic sheepishly leaves with Knuckles, and together they, Julie-Su, the Chaotix (back together again! Also this time including Ray, who's been severely sidelined for quite some time now, and Saffron), and Bunnie all pile into the FFS and fly to Angel Island. Bunnie remains behind at Sonic's request, since he wants to make sure Sally still has a heavy hitter watching over Knothole while they're gone, and everyone else airdrops in, landing in the Marble Garden Zone. Sonic races away to do some split-second recon, and comes back with some pretty horrendous news - there's an honest-to-god prison camp not far from there location, sponsored by Eggman, run by dingoes, and filled with enslaved echidnas being worked half to death by their captors. So, naturally, the intrepid infiltrators race directly in and start causing some havoc.

Okay, this is something I've danced around for quite a while now, but… I really don’t like the portrayal of the dingoes as this weird military hive mind. Penders very obviously based them off of Nazi Germany in many ways (like… as we saw before in KtE#22, his hints toward this weren't subtle at all), and I believe he's even said that he deliberately only ever showed male dingoes, avoiding portraying women and children among their ranks, so they didn’t appear too sympathetic. Quite aside from the fact that that's a kind of ridiculous and sexist position to take especially given that one of the comic's current most threatening villains is in fact female, this just turns the dingoes into cardboard cutouts of villains instead of an interesting opposing faction in this world's political landscape. I mean, how much more interesting would they be if the story bothered to humanize them, make them relatable? But of course, that would mean that Penders would have to portray his precious echidna society as less than honorable for discriminating against them, and we can't have that, so instead they're all just military hardasses who love xenophobia and hate democracy. Hell, even the actual Nazis had more depth to their evil actions than the dingoes. And, to be fair, I know that this arc is written by Karl, not Penders, but he's just building on everything that Penders has established here, so I'm still putting the blame on Penders.

Anyway, the heroes make quick work of the dingoes stationed in the camp, though Knuckles takes a bad blow that Sonic has to save him from due to his lack of powers. Knuckles begins to protest at being helped, but he's suddenly drowned out by chanting… from the echidna slaves they've just freed. They're all bowing down to him and calling him the Avatar, hailing his return. A flabbergasted Knuckles spots Remington among the crowd and asks him what the hell is going on, and Remington explains that there's been a bit of a, eh, religious revival shall we say, among the echidnas on the island ever since he returned from the dead. Apparently, there's an old prophecy from the Ancient Walkers stating that someone will come back from the dead and deliver everyone on the island from their suffering, and, well, Knuckles fits the first part of that criteria. However, he'd barely come back from the dead before Eggman made his move on the island a year ago, preventing Knuckles from returning until now.

So things have kind of deteriorated to a severe degree in Knuckles' absence. Echidnaopolis is now Dingo City, and the dingoes are led not by General Stryker, who is conspicuously absent, but instead General Kage, a cyborg underling of Eggman's in charge of finding the Master Emerald somewhere on the island. Of course that's what Eggman is really after here, and they've captured Locke with the intention of getting the location from him one way or the other. He's been chained upside down in some dark room, and Kage has been torturing him nonstop for the past few days trying to get him to crack, to no avail. Eggman merely encourages Kage over video call to keep it up, while we transition to the Lava Reef Zone, which is where Knuckles has led all the rescued echidnas to, away from the prison camp. He's here because this is approximately where the message informing him of his father's capture originated from, but suddenly the group finds themselves surrounded by smoke, and out of the smoke steps an army of Dark Legion soldiers, surrounding them with weapons drawn…

Mobius 25 Years Later: My Dinner with Sonic

Writer: Ken Penders Pencils: Steven Butler Colors: Jason Jensen

…but who cares about all that interesting plot stuff when we can watch some forty-something moms chat next to a pool where their annoying kids and husbands are playing? Apparently, despite their husbands' rivalry, Julie-Su and Sally have actually become pretty good friends over the years, and lament that they barely get together anymore because of Knuckles and Sonic's hatred of one another. Sally is upset because of how distant Sonic has been acting lately - according to her, he barely talks to anyone he doesn't have to anymore, including Tails, whom he hasn’t spoken to in three whole years now! Excuse me, what?! Okay, Sonic and Knuckles at least have some precedent for their rivalry, however weak that precedent is, but I cannot even begin to imagine a world where Sonic just straight up ghosts his best friend for apparently no reason. Literally, no reason is given! He just doesn't like Tails anymore now! Also, in this timeline, Tails is married to Mina and he's moved to Downunda, because why the hell not? Who needs to make sense or give reasons for anything in their plot? Oh, but that's not all! If you thought that was the extent of Sonic's incredibly out-of-character writing, you thought wrong!

That's right - Sonic the forty-one-year-old father, war hero, and king of an entire nation is apparently so petty about not being able to hit a volleyball in the pool that he thinks it's acceptable to shove his own young son under the water so he can get to the ball instead. And this isn't just some case of me taking these panels out of context - on the very next page Manik rightfully calls him out on this, only for Sonic to irritably say that Manik has been "getting in his face all afternoon" and that this was the only way he could get to play with the ball. And then, just as if to rub this in our horrified faces, Knuckles also comes over and points out how terrible of an action this is, and when Manik speaks up SONIC FORCES HIM UNDER THE WATER AGAIN TO GET HIM TO STOP TALKING. I just… I cannot even begin to express how bad this is. This is literally the opposite of Sonic the Hedgehog. You cannot get further off the mark than Penders just has right here. Everything about Sonic's characterization in this arc is bad and inaccurate to who he really is, but this interaction right here is the cake topper, the prime example of just how much Penders does not understand the characters he is trying to write. I can pinpoint this as the exact moment I lost all remaining respect for Penders as a writer. I've defended him before, and I stand by my opinions that I do enjoy many of his earlier stories for the comic, but this is a goddamn travesty. Penders. Needs. To. Stop.

*sigh* We have to finish today's issue, so let's… let's just get to the end. Everyone goes inside for dinner, with Sonia and Manik heading out to play with Lara-Su while the adults have dinner together, because apparently they're so stuffy they don't even let their own kids eat with them. Knuckles and Sonic start arguing at the table, big shocker there, while Abby desperately tries to serve them dessert and their boring wives try to rein them in.

Are we gonna hear anything about what the "drone problem" or the "Overlander uprising" entailed? Those sound too interesting, so NOPE! Instead, the kids walk by and overhear the argument and promise each other they'll never fight like their parents do, while Manik tries to put the moves on Lara-Su, who is not having it. The argument ends when both Knuckles and Sonic belch simultaneously while their wives scold them disapprovingly - I think Penders is trying to go for a comedy movie sketch type thing here where classical music ramps up in hilarious intensity behind the bickering over the family dinner before everything ends on a few sharp notes from the string section, but it just comes off as utterly cringeworthy. Knuckles finally - finally! - manages to get to the point of this entire arc, which is to tell Sonic about how the world is ending. Yes, it took this long for him to tell the main character of this goddamn comic about the main conflict of this goddamn arc. Kill me. Someone please kill me.